The most recent novel by Ramona Ausubel was chosen as July's book for my very first actual book club. It deals with the death of a parent, grief, sexism, a car accident, pregnancy, animal cruelty, colonization, animal death, and conversation about abortion.
Jane's husband was the primary earner in their family. He was a scientist who already had an established career and had taught as well as working with the field, along with being a great dad. While he's researching and writing a book on an ancestor of homo sapiens that they've dubbed the Iceman, he gets killed in a car accident in Italy. Now Jane has to raise their two daughters as well as scratch out a career that will support them in a field that is known for being wrought with misogyny. She takes her daughters to Siberia where the girls find a well preserved, fully intact baby mammoth. Jane, in a fit of spontaneity, steals a couple elephant embryos that they've spliced with certain genes of the baby mammoth, and works with an eccentric couple to inseminate their elephant. When a baby is born, it changes everything.
This book was tragically underwhelming. Told from the point of view of the younger daughter, Vera, she tells the story of her family dealing (or not dealing) with the grief as she processes through baking. They travel to Siberia, Los Angeles, Iceland, but the majority of the story takes place in Italy. It was written to move fast, maybe a little too fast since it never felt like time was passing, although a full two years go by in the story. Vera is the most responsible and self aware of any of the family members, even though she's the youngest, and she knows it. The girls, especially the older daughter Eve, are crying out for attention in their own ways but Jane is focused mostly on the baby mammoth that she's help create, that they name Pearl. I though her focus on Pearl could be because it was the only thing that Jane felt like she could be in control of, especially after how impetuous she was when she stole the embryos, but the rest of the book club said I was giving her too much credit. The writing in this book was sometimes funny and clever, but most of the time it wasn't great. The characters were hard to connect to, I felt the most for the mammoth Pearl if I'm being honest.
I'm giving The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel 3.25 stars out of 5. An interesting premise, it had so much potential but it really failed to deliver in all areas.
For more from the author, check out https://ramonaausubel.com/
Pairs well with cinnamon rolls and a talk about practicing safe sex.
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